Device for determining a quantity of consumable product present in a reservoir and corresponding device for printing documents
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsPascal Coudray, Marie-Hélène Froger, Mickaël Lorgeoux
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Determination of the quantity of consumable product, notably of ink, remaining in a reservoir. A capacitor (36) is formed on each side of the reservoir (24) and a resonant circuit including this capacitor is formed with a circuit forming a notional inductor (74), such as a gyrator, and another capacitor (68), the capacitor (36) being integrated into the circuit forming a notional inductor.
Claims29
A device for determining a quantity of consumable product present in a reservoir, the device comprising:
- a first capacitor having two conductive plates which are disposed so that the reservoir is located at least partly in a dielectric space defined by the two conductive plates;
- a resonant circuit including the first capacitor and connected to an excitation signal generator;
- and
- detection means connected so as to receive a signal from the resonant circuit, the signal representing the quantity of consumable product,
- wherein the resonant circuit comprises a notional inductor circuit which excludes a coil and includes the first capacitor and which is associated with a second capacitor.
A device for printing documents, the device for use with a movable cartridge comprising an ink reservoir having a quantity of ink and a printing head, the movable cartridge for moving along a guide means arranged opposite a moving means for moving a printing medium, the device comprising:
- a first capacitor having two conductive plates which are disposed in such a way that the ink reservoir is situated at least partly in a dielectric space defined by the two conductive plates;
- a resonant circuit including the first capacitor and connected to an excitation signal generator;
- and
- detection means connected so as to receive a signal from the resonant circuit, the signal representing the quantity of ink,
- wherein the resonant circuit comprises a notional inductor circuit which excludes a coil and includes the first capacitor and which is associated with a second capacitor.
An ink refill cartridge for a document printing device, the ink refill cartridge comprising a reservoir and a conductive surface carried on a face of the reservoir which forms a plate of a capacitor.
An office machine comprising at least one device according to one of claims 1, 2, 11, 1221 to 23 or 24.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.